Public Announcement for All Sports Players

After 2 weeks in sports medicine, I find it ridiculous that pretty much everyone who comes in has weak hip, back, and shoulder cuff muscles.  That sums up 90% of the injuries!  Before you waltz off thinking, "Well, I've been playing sports since age 1, so I have strong muscles," the truth is, no sport actually strengthens those muscles.  According to my attending, if sports did strengthen those muscles, then he'd be out of business. (Hm...maybe that's why there hasn't been any education about strengthening those muscles).  Even if people DO do weights, mostly likely they never strengthen those particular muscles.  The only way to strengthen those muscles is through resistance training (against gravity or with light weights).  Unfortunately, people tend to only work on muscles they see in the mirror (biceps, abs), but miss the important ones like hip muscles (abductors, extensors), back muscles (core means back muscles too!), and rotator cuff muscles (which are the more fine muscles of the shoulder, not the huge bulky deltoid).

Without further ado, these are exercises to strengthen each group:

• Hips: most notorious is the "clam" or the one where you sit in the gym and move your knee apart or closer to each other.  Yup...sounds embarrassing right? That's one reason why everyone's weak there.  
• http://physicaltherapy.about.com/od/strengtheningexercises/p/HipEx.htm
• "Clam" video
• Hip exercise 2 video
• Hip exercise 3 video
• Hip exercise 4 video
• Interestingly enough, if you have "IT band" pain (pain on outside of hip or outside of knee), you probably have weak hip muscles too.  Of course, exercises for the IT band also helps. 
• Back: A simple one is to be on your stomach on a table/chair, have your upper body hang off the side, and raise your back straight.  Video. Here are some videos:
• Lower back home exercise video (0.35)
• Rotator cuff: many people who do overhead sports end up with "impingement syndrome" - which is a result of weak supraspinatous muscles.  
• Supraspinatous muscle strengthening video
• Other rotator cuff muscle exercises (2:15)
• Note: Use less than 3lb or else you'll start using other muscles (deltoids).

Remember to RICE! Rest, Ice, Compress, and Elevate! (okay, compress and elevate don't really make sense in these 3 cases).  Keep these muscles strong, so that you won't get worse injuries in the future!